A Homemaker’s Diary

We have decided to homeschool our son.

His doctor said we need to send him to school for socialization and human interaction.

Well, for now I don’t think 3 hours of preschool every day could do any good.

I went to Chinese kindy for 2 years, 6 years of government primary school and spent another 5 years in boarding school with 100++ people of my age and another 400 of seniors and juniors, then 4 years of University life and now at 34 years of age, I only have few people I could call as real friends.

If interaction and socialization is what he needs, we are going to provide it in different ways. I want him to know people who shares the same interest and value in life and if they happen to be friends later on, then it’s good for him.

For now he’ll go to playgroup once a week, and perhaps to music school on Sunday. He is after all only 4 1/2 years old. It’s a long way to go to reach maturity in human interaction, right?

Yesterday we walked to the playground to practise throwing and catching ball as suggested by my son’s therapist.

It has been a while since we went out to the playground. Lately I was so busy with daily routine like cooking dinner and completing the craft orders that I neglected my son’s need to go out and play.

I am ashamed of myself as much as I am angry with the whole situation.

As my son hold my hand in his, I realized that this is my true purpose of being a mother, to nurture a soul.

I do the craft work, I sell them to customers, I get money and then I buy some more craft stuffs and then I do more craft to sell. The cycle never ends. I don’t even use the money to pay for bills or to buy food for us to eat. In reality, if I stop doing my craft work now, we can still live.

My son is more important than money to buy more craft materials. That’s what I learned from our walk to the playground.

This picture of toy bin was taken by my decoupage teacher when I went for the wood graining and distressing class in March. For this particular project I chose decoupage paper from Calambour (imported product from Italy).

Next month I’m going to learn wood staining. For that one, I want to use rice paper.

Will share pictures once I have completed the lesson.

A friend lend me this book more than a month ago. It’s a great book that brought tears to my eyes, even as I just started to read the introduction written by her husband.

“Roza memasak dengan hati. Beliau merenung apa yang dimasak seolah-olah seluruh jiwa dan perasaannya ke situ. Akhirnya saya mengerti, di hati, beliau menyerahkan masakannya kepada Dia yang satu agar tertunai tanggungjawabnya. Bukan pada suami atau anak-anak, juga bukan kepada keluarga atau rakan. Ia sebagai satu amal ibadat agar ia diterima Allah.

Itulah makna Bukan Sekadar Resepi.”

I am half way through digesting the content. This is not the type of book that you can read in one go and then forget about it on your bookshelf. I think once I’m done reading it and return it to my friend, I’m going to get a copy for my library.

Worth buying and a treasure to keep!

I am currently working on this MDF spoon box, ordered by a client. This is the first time I get to work with an item like this.

First I need to basecoat all the inside and the outside of the spoon box. I decided to use a darker green for the inside (the compartments where the spoons and forks will be put in). The outside is basecoated with lighter shade of green.

I used 2 different napkins to decoupage the outside of the box. The apple design suits the front part just nice. Another napkin with fruits motif was used for the right and left side of the box.

For the lid, the client requested for doa sebelum and selepas makan with the meaning in Malay. I used another napkin with strawberry design to decoupage the upper part of the lid.

I am almost done varnishing the box and hopefully I can settle this order by next week.